Berlin police recorded 1,598 knife attacks in the first half of 2025. If this rate continues the total for the year will be slightly lower than in 2024, according to Berlin Senate and police data shared with Junge Freiheit.
Notably, however, more than half (52.5%) of the suspects were not German citizens, making migrants massively overrepresented among knife attackers.
The majority of the suspects had previously committed crimes. The largest group of foreign suspects are Syrians, with a total of 81 people, more than 7%, holding Syrian citizenship. 75 suspects (6.7%) were Turkish and 40 (3.6%) were Afghan. Out of 1,108 suspects, 913 had committed crimes before. Most were older than 20, but 20% were aged 14 to 20.
AfD politician Thorsten Weiß criticized the Senate’s measures, calling them ineffective against rising knife crime, with the justice system being too lenient.
